“You will feel it also,” said the burglar, “if you don’t show me where you keep your gold, and be quick about it.”
Tom was at his wits’ end. There were eight hundred dollars in gold in the store, and moreover it was all kept together. If he could have saved the rest by delivering to the burglar a hundred dollars, he would not have scrupled to do this, feeling that in so doing he would do the best thing possible, and obtain Mr. Burton’s approval. But this was impossible. It must be the whole or none, and it seemed probable that the whole would be taken. He was only a boy—strong of his age, it is true, but no match for the burly ruffian who, with drawn knife, was looking down upon him.
Again, suppose he surrendered the money, how could he convince Mr. Burton that he did it upon compulsion? Might it not be supposed that the burglar was a confederate of his own, whom he had voluntarily admitted into the store? Might it not even be suspected that there had been no burglary at all, but that he himself had appropriated the money, and trumped up a story to conceal his guilt.
These thoughts passed through his mind in a much shorter time than I have taken to record them. But slight as the delay was, it was too great for the impatience of the ruffian.
“If you don’t get up before I count three,” he said, “you shall have a taste of this knife.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE BURGLAR BAFFLED.
USUALLY Tom slept with the revolver under his pillow. This night he had neglected to do so. Even had it been there, however, it would have been as much as his life was worth to reach for it, as the motion would have been at once understood by the ruffian, who stood over him with a knife in his hand.
“I’ll get up,” said Tom, in answer to the threat recorded in the last chapter.